Yrs.,
Henry D. Thoreau.
Concord, July 8, 1857.
Dear Sir,—You are right in supposing that I have not been Westward. I am very little of a traveler. I am gratified to hear of the interest you take in my books; it is additional encouragement to write more of them. Though my pen is not idle, I have not published anything for a couple of years at least. I like a private life, and cannot bear to have the public in my mind.
You will excuse me for not responding more heartily to your notes, since I realize what an interval there always is between the actual and imagined author and feel that it would not be just for me to appropriate the sympathy and good will of my unseen readers.
Nevertheless, I should like to meet you, and if I ever come into your neighborhood shall endeavor to do so. Can't you tell the world of your life also? Then I shall know you, at least as well as you me.
Yours truly,
Henry D. Thoreau.
Concord, November 24, 1859.
Dear Sir,—The lectures which you refer to were reported in the newspapers, after a fashion,—the last one in some half-dozen of them,—and if I possessed one, or all, I would send them to you, bad as they are. The best, or at least longest one of the Boston lectures was in the Boston Atlas and Bee of November 2d,—maybe half the whole. There were others in the Traveller, the Journal, etc., of the same date.
I am glad to know that you are interested to see my things, and I wish I had them in printed form to send to you. I exerted myself considerably to get the last discourse printed and sold for the benefit of Brown's family, but the publishers are afraid of pamphlets, and it is now too late.[111]